Former leading New Zealand publisher and bookseller, and widely experienced judge of both the Commonwealth Writers Prize and the Montana New Zealand Book Awards, talks about what he is currently reading, what impresses him and what doesn't, along with chat about the international English language book scene, and links to sites of interest to booklovers.

We're looking for a Publishing Operations Guru. Sound like you or someone you know? Read on . . .

Publishing Operations Coordinator, Auckland University Press

Auckland University Press is New Zealand’s leading scholarly publisher, publishing around 25 new books a year, selling to bookstores and individuals in New Zealand and around the world, and regularly winning major awards....

This role provides an opportunity for a talented professional to join the Auckland University Press team. This is a pivotal role within a highly motivated, fast-paced, collaborative publishing team who love making great books. You will work closely with authors and bookshops, distributors and funders, scholars and administrators. Your responsibilities will include:

Sales and stock management Finance and royalties General administration.

You will have excellent skills in Microsoft Excel and Outlook, strong communication skills and attention to detail and a love of books. Experience with financial packages (eg, MYOB, Moneyworks, Peoplesoft) is a plus. You will play a full part in the creative teamwork at a dynamic, award-winning publisher.

Please see our website www.press.auckland.ac.nz for more information. To apply, please send a covering letter and CV to Press Director Sam Elworthy, s.elworthy@auckland.ac.nz, by 17 February 2014.

Canadian
astronaut Chris Hadfield retired recently as Commander of the International
Space Station. His photographs and videos about life in space (including his
zero-gravity performance of the David Bowie song Space Oddity) have
gained a worldwide audience. He is the author of An Astronaut’s Guide to
Life on Earth (Macmillan, ISBN: 9781447257516).

Kayla
Iacovino is pursuing a PhD degree at the University of Cambridge in volcanology
and petrology, and has participated in field expeditions to Antarctica,
Ethiopia, Chile, Costa Rica and North Korea. She is science writer for
TrekMovie.com, the leading Star Trek news site.

Mary Kisler
is the Senior Curator, Mackelvie Collection, International Art, at the Auckland
Art Gallery Toi o Tamaki. She will discuss her upcoming project on the artist
Frances Hodgkins. A link to view images under discussion follows.

David
Hepworth is a British writer, broadcaster and editor. As editorial director of
Emap Consumer Magazines, he was involved with titles such as Smash Hits,
Q, Mojo, FHM and Empire. He is now editorial
director of Development Hell, which publishes MixMag and formerly
published The Word, and speaks and writes on media issues around the
world.

Theatre
artist and choreographer Lemi Ponifasio and his company MAU have been
internationally acclaimed for their portfolio of works, two of which will be
presented at the NZ Festival. The Crimson House (5 and 6 March) has its
world premiere in advance of a world tour, and Stones In Her Mouth has
its New Zealand premiere (4 and 5 March).

Painter,
poet, curator and writer Gregory O'Brien, MNZM, is the author of a number of
books, most recently the poetry collection Beauties
of the Octagonal Pool (AUP, 2012). Greg will discuss summer poetry,
with reference to Lifeguard by Ian Wedde (AUP, ISBN: 9781869407698), and
Book of Equanimity Verses by Richard von Sturmer (Puriri Press, ISBN:
9780908943418).

On Saturday
1 February 2014 during Great Encounters between 6:06pm and 7:00pm on Radio New
Zealand National, you can hear a repeat broadcast of Kim Hill’s interview from
25 January with micro-sculptor Willard Wigan.

Jennifer Maiden took home $125,000 last night as
the overall winner of the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards — Australia’s
richest literary prize — for her collection of poetry Liquid Nitrogen. I can
think of none more deserving.More

Fast, Fresh and Unbelievably Delicious, by Matt Preston (Pan MacMillan, $50.00)
I will be discussing this book with Wallace and the significant impact that
MasterChef Aust and Masterchef NZ have on the publishing success of cookbooks,

The Dunedin illustrator, writer and exhibiting artist David Elliot has been announced by the Storylines
Children’s Literature Trust as the 2014 winner of its top award, the Storylines
Margaret Mahy Medal.

This award is given annually for lifetime achievement in the genre of
children’s writing and illustration.

‘David Elliot’s contribution to New Zealand children’s books over nearly thirty
years has been outstanding,’ says Storylines Trust chair, Libby Limbrick. ‘His
work, ranging from fantasy with a darkly gothic edge to whimsical, is always
distinctive, enjoyed by children and adults alike. He has also made a
significant contribution to New Zealand children’s literature as a teacher,
both in high schools and of adult courses.’

David Elliot is a graduate of the Christchurch College of Education, and holds
a Fine Arts Diploma in Painting from the University of Canterbury. He worked
for many years as an art teacher before turning to full-time illustration. He
has published more than thirty books, illustrating both his own texts and
stories by writers such as Margaret Mahy and Janet Frame, and for the acclaimed American Red Wall
series.

In 2011 he was the first winner of the inaugural Mallinson Rendel Award for
children's book illustrators, presented by The Arts Foundation of New
Zealand.

He is a many-times winner of the New Zealand Post picture book awards, the
Spectrum Print Design Book Awards, the Russell Clarke Award for illustration,
and the Storylines Notable Book list.

PW
David Baldacci, whose adult thrillers have more than 110 million copies in
print worldwide, is venturing onto new fictional turf with The Finisher,
which launches a children's fantasy series on March 4. It all began with a
journal that his wife gave him on Christmas Day 2008, and it wasn’t the first
time the author found inspiration in a diary. “When I was a kid, my mother
bought me a journal, and that’s when I started writing. When I received the
journal from my wife, I immediately fled to my home office, opened to the first
page, and wrote the name ‘Vega Jane.’ ”more

Author Chris Cleave, whose novels include Incendiary, The Other Hand and Gold (all Sceptre), will chair the judging panel for the The Desmond Elliott Prize 2014. The £10,000 prize recognises first-time novelists in the UK and Ireland. Cleave’s fellow judges are Patrick Neale, president of the Booksellers Association, and Isabel Berwick, associate editor of the Financial Times "Life & Arts" section.

Cleave, the latest in a line of notable writers to head up the panel, said: “The Desmond Elliott Prize has proved itself a serious and consistent award for the very best debuts in fiction. As British and Irish writing is in such first-rate health, I am expecting the reading to be exciting and the judging difficult. I’m delighted to be involved.”The judges are said to be looking for novels that have a compelling narrative and arresting characters, and are vividly written and confidently realised. Last year's winner was Ros Barber, for her novel in verse, The Marlowe Papers (Sceptre). Now in its seventh year, the award is presented in the name of the late publisher and literary agent Desmond Elliott. A longlist of 10 books will be announced in April 2014 and a shortlist in May. The winner will be revealed on 3rd July 2014 at a ceremony at Fortnum & Mason.

New prize will start by reappraising 1963's fiction gongs, when John Updike's The Centaur won National Book Award ahead of The Bell Jar and V

'Ugh' … The Centaur's author John Updike in the early 1960s. Photograph: Reuters

John Updike shouldn't have won the National Book Award in 1964, according to the organisers of a new retrospective book prize which is setting out to "right the wrongs of 50 years ago" by throwing titles including The Bell Jar and V into the mix.

The awards, to be known as the Daphnes, are being set up by literary book site Bookslut. "If you look back at the books that won the Pulitzer or the National Book Award, it is always the wrong book," writes editor Jessa Crispin. "Book awards, for the most part, celebrate mediocrity. It takes decades for the reader to catch up to a genius book, it takes years away from hype, publicity teams, and favouritism to see that some books just aren't that good."

The man who wrote Waltzing Matilda was born 150 years ago on 17 February. The Australian myth he helped create is fading

Best known for the folk song Waltzing Matilda and the ballads The Man from Snowy River and Clancy of the Overflow, Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson is the most famous – certainly the most publicly performed – Australian writer who has ever lived.One hundred and fifty years after Paterson's birth (the anniversary is 17 February), the poet looms as a giant in Australian culture – albeit one viewed increasingly from a distance. The once strident national myth that his verse did so much to create these days is subdued, though it continues to influence the way many Australians view themselves and how they are viewed from overseas.In addition to serving as the unofficial national anthem, Waltzing Matilda – a song about an itinerant farm worker who steals a sheep and kills himself to avoid being arrested for theft – has been recorded by artists as various as Bill Haley and his Comets and André Rieu.In 1981 the Australian country singer Slim Dusty's cover version became the first song to be played from space by astronauts. Other artists have appropriated and quoted from it, such as Tom Waits in his song Tom Traubert's Blues and Eric Bogle in And the Band Played Waltzing Matilda – which was covered by many acts including the Pogues.More

New research data from Kantar Worldpanel will bring absolutely no comfort whatsoever to the UK’s legions of Amazon haters. For the statistics in its quarterly entertainment barometer show that in the UK, “for the 12 weeks ending 22 December 2013, Amazon posted its highest ever market share and now holds over a quarter of the market (26.3 percent), a 5.9 percentage point growth compared with the same period last year.”

Kantar’s coverage is of entertainment products in general, especially videos and music. “Amazon traditionally performs strongly in gifting at Christmas and this year was no exception,” said Fiona Keenan, strategic insight director at Kantar Worldpanel. “Almost a third of all entertainment gifts purchased in the final quarter of 2013 were bought from the retailer and this drove its market share to increase across all categories.”Amazon’s other competitors in the entertainment arena mostly saw fairly static performance between 4Q 2012 and 4Q 2013, with the exception of HMV. Although slightly up on its 3Q performance, HMV still saw its market share fall from 21 percent to 12.5 percent when the last quarters of 2012 and 2013 are compared. Amazon seems to be eating its lunch by the pailful.

“Music and video are suffering; the video games market is relatively stable, down by only 2 percent year-on-year, while video and music have suffered heavy annual declines of 22 percent and 16 percent respectively,” Kantar concluded. “Video remained the most gifted entertainment product with family titles doing particularly well – Despicable Me 2 was the most popular gift, followed by Monster’s University and then the much-hyped Breaking Bad.”

Shelf Awareness

Amazon may offer bricks-and-mortar retailers a POS system that uses Kindle tablets "as soon as this summer," the Wall Street Journal reported, citing sources who were briefed on the company's strategy, while cautioning that the online retailer's plans "remain fluid and the project might be delayed, altered or canceled."

Noting the project would move Amazon "into the realm of physical retail stores, where more than 90% of commerce is still conducted, and open up a new trove of data from consumers' in-store spending habits," the Journal added that because larger retailers already have "extensive, complicated checkout systems that may be difficult or costly to give up, Amazon is likely to focus the project first on small and midsize retailers."

RS Thomas is one of the most highly respected British poets of the last 100 years, best known for beautiful, serious verse about faith, natural landscapes and his native Wales. Recently, however, he has been seen moonlighting on a packet of crisps.

Tyrrels, maker of high-end crisps, unwittingly used a photograph of Thomas as a whimsical promotion for a competition they were running, using the caption: "Win a fleeting look of contempt... or £25,000".

A Tyrrels spokesman said on Twitter: "The picture was chosen solely for the look. We are humbled we didn’t recognise RS Thomas sooner".

Thomas died in 2000, but academicJeremy Noel-Tod, who spotted his face on the snacks, said that Thomas would have been "contemptuous" of the use of his image. "The fact that they advertise themselves as 'Handcooked English Crisps' would certainly have been a red chilli rag to Thomas' fiercely Welsh nationalist views," he said.2. Walt Whitman – iPads The new ad for the iPad Air features a voiceover from Robin Williams in his Whitman-toting Dead Poets Society incarnation. The Whitman extract in question is from Leaves of Grass: O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish ... Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.Who knew that your verse could come in the form of a mobile Apple device? Actually, it's surprising that Apple didn't choose Whitman's poem I Sing the Body Electric instead, and claim that iPads come charged "full with the charge of the soul". Only a matter of time.3. Roger McGough and John Keats – Waitrose productsThe first time you hear the poet Roger McGough's lilting voiceover on an autumn-themed Waitrose advert, it doesn't sound like poetry. It just sounds like a soothing recitation of something pleasantly middle class. But then, you realise: it's the same voice as the one on Poetry Please! And it's reading Keats! Does the fact that McGough is (unlike Whitman and Thomas) knowingly endorsing his product make this better or worse? Keats is still obviously unaware, however. When he wrote the line "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" he probably wasn't thinking about a three for two offer on Braeburns.More

The novelist Paul Auster caught some notice the other day by remarking, in a talk at the Morgan Library, that he liked to think about a class of books he called “boy’s literature.” In this category he includes the disparate work of Poe, Pynchon, and Borges. He is able to do this because he defines the quality of “boy”-ness, as such, pretty abstractly:

[S]omeone who is so excited, takes such a sense of glee and delight in being clever, in puzzles, in games, in… and you can feel these boys cackling in their rooms when they write a good sentence, just enjoying the whole adventure of it. And the boy writers are the ones you read, and you understand why you love literature so much.

Google is rolling out an expansion of their
education initiative (Google
Play for Education) in the K-12 market with a number of announcements
and new partnerships, timed in conjunction with the Florida Education and
Technology Conference (FETC). Houghton
Mifflin Harcourtwill
"provide access to a broad range" their K-12 education content to
Google's content store, and Google's blog indicates the Education store will
also offer "classic literature" from publishers including Penguin
Random House and HarperCollins.

The "affordable access model"
makes that content available for 60-, 180-, or 360-day periods, and "provides
educators with the flexibility to regularly access updated versions, change
curricula from year to year, or to customize reading materials to individual
students." The program has been in a pilot phase in recent months;
Google offers "case studies" from three schools on their site. HMH
says "K12 content will become available in Google Play for Education in
the coming weeks."

The program offers enterprise-style content
licensing as well as device management and discounted educational apps. As part
of the rollout Samsung announced a new version of their Galaxy Tab that
integrates Google Play for Education "which will be available for K-12
school deployments for the 2014-2015 academic year."

They will start
selling it in April. Lenovo and Toshiba have both announced Chromebooks
designed for classroom use, and cloud-based teaching and learning application
GoClass announced
integration with Google Play for Education as well.

Thursday, January 30, 2014

New Zealand's literary
exchange with China continues this year with an invitation for a New Zealand
writer to spend two months in Shanghai.

Last year, Huo Yan, a young
writing star from Beijing, took up the first Rewi Alley Fellowship in New
Zealand for two months. This year a New Zealand writer will be selected for a
two month residency in Shanghai. Applications for that opportunity are now
open.

The selected writer will join an established
international writers’ programme run by the Shanghai Writers’ Association, the
city’s most prestigious literary organisation, in September and October this
year.

The writers receive free accommodation in an
inner-city apartment, a small stipend for living expenses and return air travel.
They’re invited to take part in discussions and literary events and are required
to write an article on a nominated theme before the residency starts. Apart
from that obligation, the writers are able to work on a project of their
choice.

Up to seven writers from all over the world are in
the programme each year. Many celebrated writers have taken part, including
Malaysian Tash Aw, who was long-listed for the 2013 Man Booker Prize.

New Zealand applications will close on Friday March 7 and should be posted or
emailed to the Michael King Writers’ Centre. Application details can be found
on the centre’s website www.writerscentre.org.nz,
or email the centre. The selection will be managed by a panel appointed by the
Michael King Writers’ Centre and the NZ China Friendship Society.

The opportunity is part of the first significant
literary exchange between New Zealand and China. A writer from Shanghai will
hold a similar fellowship at the Michael King Writers’ Centre in Auckland in
2015. The exchange follows the inaugural Rewi Alley Fellowship in May 2013,
when 25-year-old Huo Yan from Beijing, held a two-month residency at the
Michael King Writers’ Centre with funding through the NZ China Friendship
Society.

The project is a partnership between the New
Zealand China Friendship Society, the Michael King Writers’ Centre, the
Shanghai Writers’ Association and the Shanghai People’s Association for Friendship
with Foreign Countries. The Shanghai Writers’ Association will fund the 2014
residency, while the NZ China Friendship Society will fund the 2015 residency
via their Simon Deng Li Fund, established in 2012 to encourage cultural links
between New Zealand and China.

01/29/14 by Poetry Society of America

The Poetry Society of America is honored to announce that Gerald Stern is the 2014 recipient of the organization's highest award, the Frost Medal, presented annually for distinguished lifetime achievement in poetry. Previous winners of this award include Wallace Stevens, Marianne Moore, Gwendolyn Brooks, Allen Ginsberg, Lucille Clifton, Charles Simic, Marilyn Nelson, and Robert Bly, who was the 2013 recipient.

Gerald Stern was born in 1925 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the son of Eastern European immigrants. He studied at the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University. He is the author of numerous collections of poetry, including most recently, In Beauty Bright (Norton, 2012); Early Collected Poems from 1965-1992 (2010), which received the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry from the Library of Congress; Save the Last Dance (2008); and Everything is Burning (2005). His collection This Time: New and Selected Poems, received the 1998 National Book Award. In 2000 he was appointed the first Poet Laureate of New Jersey. His many honors include awards from the Paris Review, Poetry, and the American Poetry Review, as well as the Pennsylvania Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts, the Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets, and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For many years Gerald Stern was a professor at the University of Iowa Writers' Workshop. He now lives in Lambertville, New Jersey. More

The Michael King Writers' Centre is delighted to announce a
new programme of master classes on writing memoir with author and life writing
mentor Deborah Shepard,(left by John McDermott), who held the Autumn Residency at the centre in 2013.

William
Morris’ The Wood Beyond The
World, one of the earliest fantasy novels, sold for £2,196
alongside other printed books and works on paper at Dreweatts & Bloomsbury
Auctions’ Bibliophile Sale on Thursday 23rd January.

William Morris was a writer, artist and textile designer who was heavily
involved in the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood and the Arts and Crafts movement, of
which he was the leader. The movement was developed during the 1850s by a group
of friends who supported traditional artistic processes and, later, supported
social and economic reform. As a designer, William Morris was a passionate
believer that the design and manufacture of a product should not be separated
and he insisted on learning the techniques and understanding the materials used
in anything produced in his workshop. He said, "without dignified,
creative human occupation people became disconnected from life"

In 1891 he founded the Kelmscott Press in Hammersmith, London, where he
produced limited edition books in the elegant and classic style of the
fifteenth century. It was at Kelmscott Press in 1894 that this copy was printed
by Morris and the frontispiece designed by Edward Burne-Jones, a friend and
artist also closely associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood. This rare
survivor was one of only 350 that were made on paper at the press. [Lot 264]

Considered by many as the father of modern fantasy novels,
William Morris was the first writer to create a completely imaginary and
supernatural world. The Wood
Beyond The World is believed to have heavily influenced C. S.
Lewis’ Narnia series
and other post-war authors including J. R. R. Tolkien.

In turn, their influence can be seen in more modern fantasy novels, some of
which reached top prices elsewhere in the auction. A first edition of J. K.
Rowling’s Harry Potter and
the Half-Blood Prince with signed presentation inscription from the
author ‘To Harry’ on the title page sold for £1,037. [Lot 328] Another signed copy of Rowling’s work, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
was sold with related ephemera achieving £1,159. [Lot 329]

Full prices realised from this sale can be found online. The next Bibliophile sale will take place on
Thursday 13th February and will be followed by the sale of a collection of
natural history books from the library of a south-coast gentleman on Thursday
27th February in London.

———————————

Bonhams - Los Angeles

Los
Angeles — 2014 promises to be an exciting year for the discerning book
collector as Bonhams brings to auction a tasteful selection of ornithology,
photography, art, and literature in its Fine Books and Manuscripts auction on
February 10, set to coincide with the annual California ABAA Book Fair in
Pasadena.

The sale opens with a strong selection of ornithological titles, including the
Lockwood octavo edition of Audubon's Birds
of America (est. $15,000-20,000), John Gould's A Monograph of the Trogonidae…
($16,000-18,000), Mathews' The
Birds of Australia and The Birds of Norfolk (est. $15,000-25,000)
and Rothschild's The
Avifauna of Laysan and the Neighbouring Islands (est. $15,000-25,000),
one of the first and most important books on Hawaiian birds. This section,
which all originates from the same source, also includes some handsome original
artwork, including a Louis Agassiz Fuertes watercolour of Germain's Peacock
Pheasant and Pea Hen and Charles Robert Knight's oil of three Lady Amherst's
Pheasants (each est. $4,000-6,000).

Bonhams is very pleased to offer as well a selection of vintage photographic
images of China taken between 1910-1929 by John Zumbrun, an American
businessman and the owner of the Camera Craft store in Peking, including a
large and stunning panorama of Beijing (est. $20,000-30,000).

Some other sale highlights include an excellent copy of Foujita's A Book of Cats (est.
$60,000-80,000) and a very rare and fine copy of Hamilton and D'Hancarville's Collection of Etruscan Greek and Roman
Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton … (est.
$75,000-100,000). This last title is almost unknown in the full four volumes,
and certainly not in a contemporary binding.

The sale closes with small but interesting sections of Literature and
Philosophy, including the first collaboration of Marx and Engels (est.
$6,000-8,000) and a fine copy of Hume's Treatise
of Human Nature (est. $15,000-20,000), followed by some excellent examples
of Western Americana, including George Bonnell's Topographical Description of Texas (1840;
est. $8,000-12,000) and Leonard Kip's California
Sketches…. (1850, est. $5,000-7,000), the former the first book on
Texas and the latter an important account of Gold Rush-era California.

Preview begins in San Francisco January 31-February 2, coinciding with the 2014
San Francisco Book and Print Fair. The following weekend Bonhams will hold
extended preview hours in Los Angeles to accommodate attendees of the book fair
in Pasadena, opening 10-5 Thursday the 6th through Sunday the 9th. The sale
will be held Monday the 10th at 10am, simulcast between Los Angeles and San
Francisco.

Two weeks after the Fine Books and Manuscripts auction, Bonhams will feature a
large collection of Fine Press books and Books on Books in the February 24
Period Art & Design auction at Bonhams in San Francisco. Included are
examples from legendary Bay Area presses Arion Press, Grabhorn Press and Allen
Press, as well as other American and British presses including Barbarian Press,
Bird & Bull Press, Doves Press, Essex House Press, Gehenna Press, Golden
Cockerel Press, Gregynog Press, the Limited Editions Club, Pennyroyal Press and
Trianon Press.

———————————
New York Public Library

A
number of maps have recently been discovered as missing from the Lionel Pincus
& Princess Firyal Map Division of The New York Public Library. If you have
any information about, or know the location of, any of these maps please notify
Matt Knutzen, Assistant Chief of the Map Division at mknutzen@nypl.org

———————————
From the British Library

Hidden
History of the British in India

Findmypast.co.uk, the leading family history website, and the British Library
announced today the online publication of 2.5 million records detailing the
lives of the British in India from 1698 to 1947.

Covering over 200 years of rich and colourful history, the newly-released
records chronicle the lives of Europeans living in areas under British
influence and include individuals from all walks of life. Soldiers, army
officers, surgeons, doctors, wealthy merchants, members of the military, civil,
legal and public works establishments, their families and many others such as
traders, planters, missionaries and mariners can all be found within the
collection.

2.5 million records chronicling the lives of early 'expats' from all walks of
life.

India Office Records spanning over two centuries of the British In India from
the East India Company to the Raj through to Indian Independence now scanned
and fully searchable.